Showing posts with label silver age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silver age. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2008
Silver age DC question
So why is it that they changed Green Lanterns (from Alan to Hal) and Flashes (from Jay to Barry) in the first place, rather than reviving the Golden Age originals?
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Shave and a haircut?
Because I always loved the old SHIELD barbershop.
And yes, I'm still sick, so you get to make up your own "stud release button" joke.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Lives of the Lovelorn: Hawkeye and the Black Widow
Both Clint and Natasha were introduced in the pages of Iron Man (well, Tales of Suspense in those days, which he shared with Captain America), both as villainous (or semi-villainous in the case of Hawkeye) characters.
Tony Stark always was more concerned about the Commies than a lot of Marvel's heroes--he began his Iron Man career in Viet Nam and, since at that time he was primarily a manufacturer of weapons, he had to deal with industrial espionage on top of the usual villainry. That's where the Black Widow came in, a Soviet spy sent to seduce Stark and learn his secrets. She had first gone in alone, and had been less than successful (although not about the seducation, which with Tony was pretty much a given in those days). So when she met Hawkeye and saw in him a potential ally to be used against Stark, she applied her techniques in his direction. Poor guy never had a chance.
Unfortunately for Natasha, she didn't do any better partnered with Hawkeye than she had alone--he took a shot at Iron Man, and his arrow bounced off of the armor and hit her.
Now, Natasha was a communist spy at this point in her career, but Hawkeye was not. In fact, he had taken on a costumed identity in order to fight evil (granted that he was first motivated by jealousy of Iron Man, but still his heart was always in the right place). So she had to convince him that she, as well, was on the side of good. Not that this was difficult, convincing Clint of what he wanted to think anyway...
...but on some level he really did realize what was going on.
At this point their love affair was interrupted, when Natasha--unsuccessful in completing her mission--was taken back to her home base by force.
But as she leaves the scene, the seeds of her eventual redemption are planted--she really does love Hawkeye, after all.
When next we see Natasha, she is in a costume given her by her superiors, who have given her an ultimatum: complete your mission or else.
And we're shown just what "or else" means (and given yet another reason to find her sympathetic).
When she asks him to help her against Iron Man once again, he's still reluctant, but--as usual--it doesn't take much for her to convince him.
However, it also doesn't take much for him to give up on the subsequent battle with Iron Man. He says it's all because he loves her so much, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't mind being given a way out of the fight.
However, Hawkeye's failure to complete his part of the mission apparently caused a break with the Widow, because the next time we see her is in the pages of The Avengers--again as a villainess but with some doubt in her heart.
And new-Avenger Clint also allows his emotions to get the better of him:
But in the end, all was well...
...at least for a while. Oh, sure, there were trust issues:
And, even as a "good guy" Natasha wasn't necessarily going to be Avengers material in that era:
And then there was her career as an agent (double-agent, even!) of SHIELD:
Even after the whole traitor storyline was over, there were issues. Such as the revelation of Natasha's husband:
Eventually, Natasha tried to quit the whole thing.
But that didn't work out so well for her, either.
And eventually she returned to spy work.
(Note that Hawkeye, on the whole, was far cooler about Natasha's SHIELD career than Captain America was about Sharon's.)
But Natasha appeared less and less often in the pages of The Avengers. Eventually the lovers were once again torn apart, and eventually it really would be the end.
The next time we see Natasha, all the years of deception--necessary or not--have come to a head:
I was actually pretty impressed, reading that last comic--published in the mid-1970s, which really takes it out of the Silver Age--that the emotional consequences of typical Silver Age romantic nonsense were being dealt with somewhat realistically--or at all!
I don't think she and Clint ever did discuss the particulars of their relationship (they didn't at that point, in any case), but there is, at least, a sense that there are consequences to actions--to the fact that as a villain she had preyed on the emotions of a needy man, and as a heroine she had treated him inconsistently at best due to her work, and that regardless of motive she had done him some damage and recognized this.
I haven't read the Black Widow mini yet, so I'm not sure how much is different about her current backstory, but--take away the Silver Age soft-focus lens--and here you've got a character who has not only really changed over time, she has become consciously self-aware. I'm not saying that any of that is likely to have stuck, or that she wouldn't make some of the same mistakes again--it's comics, after all, and even in real life habit is hard to break--but that's pretty cool.
Tony Stark always was more concerned about the Commies than a lot of Marvel's heroes--he began his Iron Man career in Viet Nam and, since at that time he was primarily a manufacturer of weapons, he had to deal with industrial espionage on top of the usual villainry. That's where the Black Widow came in, a Soviet spy sent to seduce Stark and learn his secrets. She had first gone in alone, and had been less than successful (although not about the seducation, which with Tony was pretty much a given in those days). So when she met Hawkeye and saw in him a potential ally to be used against Stark, she applied her techniques in his direction. Poor guy never had a chance.
Unfortunately for Natasha, she didn't do any better partnered with Hawkeye than she had alone--he took a shot at Iron Man, and his arrow bounced off of the armor and hit her.
Now, Natasha was a communist spy at this point in her career, but Hawkeye was not. In fact, he had taken on a costumed identity in order to fight evil (granted that he was first motivated by jealousy of Iron Man, but still his heart was always in the right place). So she had to convince him that she, as well, was on the side of good. Not that this was difficult, convincing Clint of what he wanted to think anyway...
...but on some level he really did realize what was going on.
At this point their love affair was interrupted, when Natasha--unsuccessful in completing her mission--was taken back to her home base by force.
But as she leaves the scene, the seeds of her eventual redemption are planted--she really does love Hawkeye, after all.
When next we see Natasha, she is in a costume given her by her superiors, who have given her an ultimatum: complete your mission or else.
And we're shown just what "or else" means (and given yet another reason to find her sympathetic).
When she asks him to help her against Iron Man once again, he's still reluctant, but--as usual--it doesn't take much for her to convince him.
However, it also doesn't take much for him to give up on the subsequent battle with Iron Man. He says it's all because he loves her so much, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't mind being given a way out of the fight.
However, Hawkeye's failure to complete his part of the mission apparently caused a break with the Widow, because the next time we see her is in the pages of The Avengers--again as a villainess but with some doubt in her heart.
And new-Avenger Clint also allows his emotions to get the better of him:
But in the end, all was well...
...at least for a while. Oh, sure, there were trust issues:
And, even as a "good guy" Natasha wasn't necessarily going to be Avengers material in that era:
And then there was her career as an agent (double-agent, even!) of SHIELD:
Even after the whole traitor storyline was over, there were issues. Such as the revelation of Natasha's husband:
Eventually, Natasha tried to quit the whole thing.
But that didn't work out so well for her, either.
And eventually she returned to spy work.
(Note that Hawkeye, on the whole, was far cooler about Natasha's SHIELD career than Captain America was about Sharon's.)
But Natasha appeared less and less often in the pages of The Avengers. Eventually the lovers were once again torn apart, and eventually it really would be the end.
The next time we see Natasha, all the years of deception--necessary or not--have come to a head:
I was actually pretty impressed, reading that last comic--published in the mid-1970s, which really takes it out of the Silver Age--that the emotional consequences of typical Silver Age romantic nonsense were being dealt with somewhat realistically--or at all!
I don't think she and Clint ever did discuss the particulars of their relationship (they didn't at that point, in any case), but there is, at least, a sense that there are consequences to actions--to the fact that as a villain she had preyed on the emotions of a needy man, and as a heroine she had treated him inconsistently at best due to her work, and that regardless of motive she had done him some damage and recognized this.
I haven't read the Black Widow mini yet, so I'm not sure how much is different about her current backstory, but--take away the Silver Age soft-focus lens--and here you've got a character who has not only really changed over time, she has become consciously self-aware. I'm not saying that any of that is likely to have stuck, or that she wouldn't make some of the same mistakes again--it's comics, after all, and even in real life habit is hard to break--but that's pretty cool.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Silver Age Soap: Captain America
People say that in the past, comic book heroes were more stoic, solid heroic types who never let their personal problems get the better of them. They say that modern heroes are too prone to letting their emotions take over, to whining and moaning about every little thing. Possibly this is true if you're comparing today's comics to those of sixty years ago. However, forty years ago, during the Silver Age, heroes had plenty of drama, and many moments of anguished self-absorption. And Marvel's Stan Lee was the master of this Silver Age angst.
And no one had more of it than Captain America. First came Stan's decision to retroactively kill off sidekick Bucky, which led not only to guilt but to the constant fear of losing anyone else he might grow close to, particularly girlfriend Sharon Carter and new teenage sometime-partner Rick Jones. Add to that all the "man out of time" issues and a certain amount of normal trauma related to war memories, and Cap was a great candidate for any number of angst-laden monologues.
The biggest source of angst for Cap in the Silver Age, as indeed for Cap throughout most of his post-revival career, was of course the death of Bucky. And if Cap wasn't miserable enough due to his own obsessive thoughts, there were always plenty of opportunities to be reminded of it. For example, the many miles of newsreel footage featuring Cap and Bucky in action during the war.
And then there were the nightmares.
It didn't help much that Rick Jones was itching to take on the sidekick role. For a long time, Cap refused to let him wear the costume, although he did accompany him on a number of missions in civilian clothing. Here we see Rick giving Cap a piece of his mind, in an unusually astute analysis:
After this, Cap finally allowed Rick to don the costume and join him as a full partner, at least for a while.
Oh, I do have to mention that this wasn't the first time Rick tried this little trick. Several years earlier, in a remarkably similar scene, Rick had done exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for him, that time he wasn't quite as prepared for Cap's reaction.
When it wasn't Bucky (and, by extension, Rick) on his mind, Cap would worry about the safety of SHIELD-agent girlfriend Sharon.
And, just for a little variety, he would occasionally just angst about his place (or lack of one) in the modern era:
Yep, Silver Age Cap was seriously messed up. He did mellow some over time, and has by now regained a fair amount of his Golden Age stoicism. (Or had, before his recent death.) However, he still hadn't managed to solve what he knew even then was one of his biggest problems:
And no one had more of it than Captain America. First came Stan's decision to retroactively kill off sidekick Bucky, which led not only to guilt but to the constant fear of losing anyone else he might grow close to, particularly girlfriend Sharon Carter and new teenage sometime-partner Rick Jones. Add to that all the "man out of time" issues and a certain amount of normal trauma related to war memories, and Cap was a great candidate for any number of angst-laden monologues.
The biggest source of angst for Cap in the Silver Age, as indeed for Cap throughout most of his post-revival career, was of course the death of Bucky. And if Cap wasn't miserable enough due to his own obsessive thoughts, there were always plenty of opportunities to be reminded of it. For example, the many miles of newsreel footage featuring Cap and Bucky in action during the war.
And then there were the nightmares.
It didn't help much that Rick Jones was itching to take on the sidekick role. For a long time, Cap refused to let him wear the costume, although he did accompany him on a number of missions in civilian clothing. Here we see Rick giving Cap a piece of his mind, in an unusually astute analysis:
After this, Cap finally allowed Rick to don the costume and join him as a full partner, at least for a while.
Oh, I do have to mention that this wasn't the first time Rick tried this little trick. Several years earlier, in a remarkably similar scene, Rick had done exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for him, that time he wasn't quite as prepared for Cap's reaction.
When it wasn't Bucky (and, by extension, Rick) on his mind, Cap would worry about the safety of SHIELD-agent girlfriend Sharon.
And, just for a little variety, he would occasionally just angst about his place (or lack of one) in the modern era:
Yep, Silver Age Cap was seriously messed up. He did mellow some over time, and has by now regained a fair amount of his Golden Age stoicism. (Or had, before his recent death.) However, he still hadn't managed to solve what he knew even then was one of his biggest problems:
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Marvel fan days of my youth
So I was reading a few things on Bloglines today, and came across a link in Dick Hates Your Blog to this piece on politics in Marvel comics in the 8os, something I know pretty much nothing about. (I'm not writing about it today, either.)
Now, I had heard the name Vince Colletta before, on the splash page of god-only-knows-how-many comics I read as a kid and teenager, often with a bouncy adjective attached (ala "Jumpin' Jack Kirby" and "Stompin' Stan Lee").
That's another thing that made Marvel stand out to me when I was a kid--the personality. I don't remember ever noticing any credits on DC books I read, although I know they were there. But they weren't as dynamic as the ones on my Marvel books. And even after the nicknames disappeared from the credits, they were still all over the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin,* a page promoting upcoming projects, discussing editorial and creative-team changes in the company--as a twelve-year-old I certainly didn't read this closely but I did usually glance at it. I remember reading Stan's Soapbox, noting the way creators and their projects were referred to so effusively and so personally.
It all seemed so joyful, as if these people all went to work and had fun! And why not?--to a twelve-year-old, a job consisting of telling stories and drawing pictures would have been the ultimate good time. These must be the happiest people on the planet!
Yeah, I'm a grownup now. And it's been thirty years or thereabouts since I enjoyed that sort of blindness to the fact that any job is, well, a job. And I know that all the things I'm talking about--Stan's Soapbox, the goofy credits, etc.--were, really, business, promotion of an image. But I still have fond memories of being a young girl, looking forward to each month's new Fantastic Four, and feeling like the folks who made it had at least as much fun putting the book together as I did reading it.
* Of course I had to go out to the porch and grab an old Silver Age book out of the longbox. The one I took is from 1974, and one of the announcements on the Bullpen Bulletin Page is about the Invaders title; it'll give you an idea of the tone taken in these things:
Yeah, back in the day, long before the internet and the pages and pages of creator interviews and the 6 pages of previews of upcoming titles, this is what we had to whet our appetite for new books. Doesn't seem like much compared to, say, Newsarama, does it? :)
Now, I had heard the name Vince Colletta before, on the splash page of god-only-knows-how-many comics I read as a kid and teenager, often with a bouncy adjective attached (ala "Jumpin' Jack Kirby" and "Stompin' Stan Lee").
That's another thing that made Marvel stand out to me when I was a kid--the personality. I don't remember ever noticing any credits on DC books I read, although I know they were there. But they weren't as dynamic as the ones on my Marvel books. And even after the nicknames disappeared from the credits, they were still all over the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin,* a page promoting upcoming projects, discussing editorial and creative-team changes in the company--as a twelve-year-old I certainly didn't read this closely but I did usually glance at it. I remember reading Stan's Soapbox, noting the way creators and their projects were referred to so effusively and so personally.
It all seemed so joyful, as if these people all went to work and had fun! And why not?--to a twelve-year-old, a job consisting of telling stories and drawing pictures would have been the ultimate good time. These must be the happiest people on the planet!
Yeah, I'm a grownup now. And it's been thirty years or thereabouts since I enjoyed that sort of blindness to the fact that any job is, well, a job. And I know that all the things I'm talking about--Stan's Soapbox, the goofy credits, etc.--were, really, business, promotion of an image. But I still have fond memories of being a young girl, looking forward to each month's new Fantastic Four, and feeling like the folks who made it had at least as much fun putting the book together as I did reading it.
* Of course I had to go out to the porch and grab an old Silver Age book out of the longbox. The one I took is from 1974, and one of the announcements on the Bullpen Bulletin Page is about the Invaders title; it'll give you an idea of the tone taken in these things:
ITEM: Let's roll out the red carpet for Free-wheelin' FRANK ROBBINS, Marvel's newest editor and bon vivant! As many of you know, Frank's the artist and writer of the newspaper comic strip "Johnny Hazard," and is considered by his peers to be one of the finest craftsmen in the business. Now, after cutting his incisors on a Morbius tale or two in the pages of ADVENTURES INTO FEAR, Frank has stepped in to give our pal SAL BUSCEMA a well-earned rest from the pages of CAPTAIN AMERICA--and to team up with Roy the Boy [Thomas] on a brand new 50 cent title due to debut early in '75. Its title? THE INVADERS! (Who's going to be in this newest, most exciting super-group? We'll leave you guessing for a month or so, pilgrim. Suffice it to say that we think the lineup of this liltin' legion is going to catch nearly everybody off guard, and that Free-wheelin' Frank will definitely have his hands full!)
Yeah, back in the day, long before the internet and the pages and pages of creator interviews and the 6 pages of previews of upcoming titles, this is what we had to whet our appetite for new books. Doesn't seem like much compared to, say, Newsarama, does it? :)
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
I want this and I want it bad.
Marvel is putting out Invaders Classic Volume 1, coming out in July.
240 pages of 1970s Invaders goodness.
And "Volume 1" means that there will be more.
Let the squealing commence.
240 pages of 1970s Invaders goodness.
And "Volume 1" means that there will be more.
Let the squealing commence.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
More Old School Supergirl
This looks to be the 70s-era Supergirl in a story entitled "Crypt of the Frozen Graves." In this tale Linda Danvers is trying her hand at the news business--officially she's a camera operator, but in her spare time writes freelance articles on organized crime, getting her information from a very frightened source.
Unfortunately the poor informant is discovered (and killed), and Linda has to seek out the information she wants using other means:
Better look fast--you won't see Supergirl in a revealing outfit like that again anytime soon...what's that?...ah...never mind.
In any case, Supergirl here displays that near-universal trait of the Silver Age superheroine--her execrable taste in men! One wonders as well about what she would consider a deal-breaker in a relationship. First-date groping? No problem. Criminal past? Just fine. Perfectly rational fear of bullets? Not acceptable!
But nothing to interrupt dinner over.
This, however, was...
Yes, it took endangering the lives of a restaurant full of innocent people to show Supergirl that this guy might not be Mr. Right.
And since this was the Silver Age, there's only one thing to do in this sort of situation. That's right--teach the lout a well-needed lesson!
However, the youthful Supergirl clearly hasn't yet fully developed her power of super-self-righteousness, because that lesson? Not quite what she was aiming for:
The rest of the story? Well, rest assured that there are in fact some frozen graves in this tale, and that Supergirl emerges triumphant at the story's end. Uncomfortable with the way in which her own actions as budding investigative reporter may have contributed to two deaths, she quits her job in an ethical huff, clearing the way for yet another new adventure in the next issue of her book.
And most important, Linda has learned a little lesson of her own:
Unfortunately the poor informant is discovered (and killed), and Linda has to seek out the information she wants using other means:
Better look fast--you won't see Supergirl in a revealing outfit like that again anytime soon...what's that?...ah...never mind.
In any case, Supergirl here displays that near-universal trait of the Silver Age superheroine--her execrable taste in men! One wonders as well about what she would consider a deal-breaker in a relationship. First-date groping? No problem. Criminal past? Just fine. Perfectly rational fear of bullets? Not acceptable!
But nothing to interrupt dinner over.
This, however, was...
Yes, it took endangering the lives of a restaurant full of innocent people to show Supergirl that this guy might not be Mr. Right.
And since this was the Silver Age, there's only one thing to do in this sort of situation. That's right--teach the lout a well-needed lesson!
However, the youthful Supergirl clearly hasn't yet fully developed her power of super-self-righteousness, because that lesson? Not quite what she was aiming for:
The rest of the story? Well, rest assured that there are in fact some frozen graves in this tale, and that Supergirl emerges triumphant at the story's end. Uncomfortable with the way in which her own actions as budding investigative reporter may have contributed to two deaths, she quits her job in an ethical huff, clearing the way for yet another new adventure in the next issue of her book.
And most important, Linda has learned a little lesson of her own:
Monday, February 12, 2007
Old School Supergirl
I recently came across an old (1980) digest-sized Supergirl comic called The Many Lives of Supergirl. It includes a number of old Superirl stories from various time periods, and none are identified by date--but I'm pretty sure the one I'm talking about here was a 60s or early-70s Supergirl. I'm not a Supergirl fan particularly, but folks on the comic internet have been talking so much about her lately that this story in particular stood out in contrast. It's about Supergirl's introduction to the world, after years spent keeping her super-ness secret from everyone while living her life as orphaned-and-adopted Linda Lee Danvers, and yeah, it's typical Silver Age. But I'm just going to let these images speak for themselves, all right?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Comics to Remember: Adventure #356, "The Five Legion Orphans" (1967) [Spoilers]
It's not a very large sample, but between this book and the Wonder Woman I discussed a few posts ago, I'd say that when I was five, a sure way to get me to buy a comic was to feature the regular characters turned into children. Or possibly that was a sure way to get my dad to pick that book to bring home to me, I don't recall. (Incidentally, the brown spots on the pics are from where the staples rusted over the years.)
In any case, here is Adventure 356, in 1967 the source for Legion of Superheroes stories. The story begins on Parents' Day, apparently a far more significant holiday in the 30th century, celebrated with parades and extensive media coverage of the parents of celebrities:
In the mean time, those Legionnaires without parents are stuck with monitor duty, and some are feeling a bit sorry for themselves, which isn't entirely unreasonable:
Suddenly the orphan Legionnaires are interrupted by a distress call from the planet Zinth. A valuable power crystal has been stolen by raiders and dropped into a pool of water. Mon-El and Superboy go search for the raiders (unsuccessfully) while Brainiac 5, Dream Girl and Element Lad don masks which will allow them to breathe underwater and go after the crystal. It's heavy, but the three manage to carry it out--until they find themselves growing weaker and are forced to drop it. When they emerge from the pool, it's apparent that they are only weaker because they are now younger, due to the effect of the water. Mon-El and Superboy return to find their friends transformed, and--assuming that they will be invulnerable to whatever is in the water--they go after the crystal themselves. Unfortunately they're wrong, and although they rescue the crystal, pretty soon they suffer the same fate as their companions. As toddlers they retain their powers, but not their memories--except for Brainiac 5 and his twelfth-level intellect.
They are immediately taken off to the Interstellar Orphanage. Please note the resemblance of the orphanage to a zoo--it seems designed for display more than anything else. (Also please note that Silver Age Brainy had a lot more respect for Dream Girl's powers than he has in his last few incarnations.)
Pretty soon the child-sized Leionnaires are on display as well, and the kids all try their best to get adopted by showing their abilities.
All are adopted and leave for their new homes. As for why Brainiac 5--who remembers who they all are!--doesn't tell anyone what happened, I can't figure out. Heck, he could have gotten back to his own lab and fixed 'em all. (I'll put it down to artistic license.) Instead, he sneaks into his new dad's lab to try to figure things out. This is not difficult, since apparently parenting on this planet doesn't involve anything resembling actually watching the kids. You'd think that someone who had just adopted a child would want to spend some time with him or her, but not here.
And that's a good thing for li'l Brainiac 5, because it enables him to save the day.
A "pleasant surprise"? Brainiac 5 is displaying his power of super-understatement here, I think...
As a kid, I don't think I thought much about it, but damn, this is a dark story. I can only imagine how it would be told today.
In any case, here is Adventure 356, in 1967 the source for Legion of Superheroes stories. The story begins on Parents' Day, apparently a far more significant holiday in the 30th century, celebrated with parades and extensive media coverage of the parents of celebrities:
In the mean time, those Legionnaires without parents are stuck with monitor duty, and some are feeling a bit sorry for themselves, which isn't entirely unreasonable:
Suddenly the orphan Legionnaires are interrupted by a distress call from the planet Zinth. A valuable power crystal has been stolen by raiders and dropped into a pool of water. Mon-El and Superboy go search for the raiders (unsuccessfully) while Brainiac 5, Dream Girl and Element Lad don masks which will allow them to breathe underwater and go after the crystal. It's heavy, but the three manage to carry it out--until they find themselves growing weaker and are forced to drop it. When they emerge from the pool, it's apparent that they are only weaker because they are now younger, due to the effect of the water. Mon-El and Superboy return to find their friends transformed, and--assuming that they will be invulnerable to whatever is in the water--they go after the crystal themselves. Unfortunately they're wrong, and although they rescue the crystal, pretty soon they suffer the same fate as their companions. As toddlers they retain their powers, but not their memories--except for Brainiac 5 and his twelfth-level intellect.
They are immediately taken off to the Interstellar Orphanage. Please note the resemblance of the orphanage to a zoo--it seems designed for display more than anything else. (Also please note that Silver Age Brainy had a lot more respect for Dream Girl's powers than he has in his last few incarnations.)
Pretty soon the child-sized Leionnaires are on display as well, and the kids all try their best to get adopted by showing their abilities.
All are adopted and leave for their new homes. As for why Brainiac 5--who remembers who they all are!--doesn't tell anyone what happened, I can't figure out. Heck, he could have gotten back to his own lab and fixed 'em all. (I'll put it down to artistic license.) Instead, he sneaks into his new dad's lab to try to figure things out. This is not difficult, since apparently parenting on this planet doesn't involve anything resembling actually watching the kids. You'd think that someone who had just adopted a child would want to spend some time with him or her, but not here.
And that's a good thing for li'l Brainiac 5, because it enables him to save the day.
A "pleasant surprise"? Brainiac 5 is displaying his power of super-understatement here, I think...
As a kid, I don't think I thought much about it, but damn, this is a dark story. I can only imagine how it would be told today.
Friday, November 17, 2006
And now some Silver Age Wonder Woman goodness
Most of my old comics are sorted and in approximate order. Many are even bagged, although not boarded. But I do have a few boxes containing an assortment of books I didn't buy regularly, including some of the books I had as a young child (the ones that, somehow, managed to avoid destruction). This post is about a comic from that box.
The year was 1968. I had just turned six. And this Wonder Woman book was the only choice that day for me:
and it would have been for you, too, had you been a six-year-old girl. The cover promised pure awesomeness: the good Wonder Woman as a little girl, cowering before the great big evil Wonder Woman, who's obviously about to go all Joan Crawford on her. Obviously the story within would be even better--the triumph of good over evil, or youth over age, or both? A great battle wherein the good little Wonder Woman would win by use of her wits?
Well, no. First of all, here's how WW got into the situation in the first place. She's out on a date with Steve Trevor. They are attacked by an evil (you can tell he's evil because he's ugly) villain with a massive crush on WW, who ties Steve to a rock in the middle of a shark-filled pool and threatens to have him killed unless WW kisses him like she means it.
So Wonder Woman has a dilemma. On the one hand, she can save Steve by kissing the Gargoyle, and Steve will dump her because he's such a jerk. On the other hand, she can refuse to kiss the Gargoyle and Steve will be eaten by sharks. Well, okay, that's not such a dilemma--more of a win-win, really, in that in either case Steve is gone. But long-suffering Diana doesn't see it that way, bites the bullet and saves Steve. The ungrateful bastard.
Steve, in an apparently-typical overreaction and despite having already been saved from certain death, managed to throw enough of a fit that he flings himself into the shark pool. Again Diana is forced to save him, this time getting away from the Gargoyle herself as well. Beside herself with grief at the loss of Steve, she takes him in her nifty invisible plane to her own private island, where she attempts to save both his life and his love for her. Didn't know that that Purple Healing Ray also had a "Brainwash" setting, did you?
Poor Wonder Woman. Here she thinks she's got Steve back where she wants him (as for why she wants him, that's another matter) and here's another Wonder Woman from a parallel universe, ready to snatch him up as if he had no will of his own whatsoever (hm...). When the good WW asks her mom for advice, she's told to challenge the evil WW to a contest, with Steve as the prize. Her counterpart readily agrees, but stipulates that the contest must take place on her own home turf and that if she wins, Steve must stay with her (to which he happily accedes, fickle sonoabitch that he is).
(Please note that the matter of how this evil WW got from one Earth to the other is almost entirely ignored. To get to the evil WW's home world, each WW flies her plane into a mysterious cloud and comes out on the other side. One would think that if that's all it takes, there'd be interdimensional plane travel taking place accidentally all the time in the Silver Age DC universe. There isn't, is there?)
In any case, there they are, and the contests begin. At first the two Wonder Women are evenly matched, but pretty soon our WW finds herself falling behind, because in this world she is mysteriously turned into a teenager. Don't ask why, I didn't, but of course I was six. From then on, things go from bad to worse:
and the good little Wonder Woman is easily trounced by her older, stronger, eviller counterpart. But just when it looks as if our heroine will get to go home alone, leaving Steve stranded in that evil universe, never to return (hooray!)...
Sigh. Well, at least we don't actually see a kiss. Personally I'm hoping that she actually decided to kick him out of the plane at this point, or at least give him a firm slap across the head. That's my happy ending for this story.
Oh, and in case the reader happened to miss the point, here's the comic's author (I have to assume) making sure to drive it home:
So...did she lose? Yes. Yes, she did.
Oh, and Blogger tells me that this is my 100th post! Amazing, I feel like I just started this thing.
The year was 1968. I had just turned six. And this Wonder Woman book was the only choice that day for me:
and it would have been for you, too, had you been a six-year-old girl. The cover promised pure awesomeness: the good Wonder Woman as a little girl, cowering before the great big evil Wonder Woman, who's obviously about to go all Joan Crawford on her. Obviously the story within would be even better--the triumph of good over evil, or youth over age, or both? A great battle wherein the good little Wonder Woman would win by use of her wits?
Well, no. First of all, here's how WW got into the situation in the first place. She's out on a date with Steve Trevor. They are attacked by an evil (you can tell he's evil because he's ugly) villain with a massive crush on WW, who ties Steve to a rock in the middle of a shark-filled pool and threatens to have him killed unless WW kisses him like she means it.
So Wonder Woman has a dilemma. On the one hand, she can save Steve by kissing the Gargoyle, and Steve will dump her because he's such a jerk. On the other hand, she can refuse to kiss the Gargoyle and Steve will be eaten by sharks. Well, okay, that's not such a dilemma--more of a win-win, really, in that in either case Steve is gone. But long-suffering Diana doesn't see it that way, bites the bullet and saves Steve. The ungrateful bastard.
Steve, in an apparently-typical overreaction and despite having already been saved from certain death, managed to throw enough of a fit that he flings himself into the shark pool. Again Diana is forced to save him, this time getting away from the Gargoyle herself as well. Beside herself with grief at the loss of Steve, she takes him in her nifty invisible plane to her own private island, where she attempts to save both his life and his love for her. Didn't know that that Purple Healing Ray also had a "Brainwash" setting, did you?
Poor Wonder Woman. Here she thinks she's got Steve back where she wants him (as for why she wants him, that's another matter) and here's another Wonder Woman from a parallel universe, ready to snatch him up as if he had no will of his own whatsoever (hm...). When the good WW asks her mom for advice, she's told to challenge the evil WW to a contest, with Steve as the prize. Her counterpart readily agrees, but stipulates that the contest must take place on her own home turf and that if she wins, Steve must stay with her (to which he happily accedes, fickle sonoabitch that he is).
(Please note that the matter of how this evil WW got from one Earth to the other is almost entirely ignored. To get to the evil WW's home world, each WW flies her plane into a mysterious cloud and comes out on the other side. One would think that if that's all it takes, there'd be interdimensional plane travel taking place accidentally all the time in the Silver Age DC universe. There isn't, is there?)
In any case, there they are, and the contests begin. At first the two Wonder Women are evenly matched, but pretty soon our WW finds herself falling behind, because in this world she is mysteriously turned into a teenager. Don't ask why, I didn't, but of course I was six. From then on, things go from bad to worse:
and the good little Wonder Woman is easily trounced by her older, stronger, eviller counterpart. But just when it looks as if our heroine will get to go home alone, leaving Steve stranded in that evil universe, never to return (hooray!)...
Sigh. Well, at least we don't actually see a kiss. Personally I'm hoping that she actually decided to kick him out of the plane at this point, or at least give him a firm slap across the head. That's my happy ending for this story.
Oh, and in case the reader happened to miss the point, here's the comic's author (I have to assume) making sure to drive it home:
So...did she lose? Yes. Yes, she did.
Oh, and Blogger tells me that this is my 100th post! Amazing, I feel like I just started this thing.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Silver Age Supergirl: Fashionista!
The cover sets the stage in this 1970 issue of Supergirl. Eight-year-old Brainfreeze eagerly snatched this one up, carefully perusing the cover to make up my own mind as to which new costume Supergirl should choose. (I liked the one with the jagged boot tops and skirt, btw.)
Apparently DC had run a contest wherein readers could send in their own costume designs. Clever idea, and I think the Legion of Superheroes did something similar at some point.
In this story, Linda Danvers (Supergirl's alter ego) is a college girl in a funk. Since there's a "girl" in Supergirl, there is but one way for her to brush away her blues:
And who does she see in the clothing store but Wonder Woman, who has given up her superhero lifestyle and now runs her very own boutique. No wonder Supergirl is envious!
But even though Linda is all girl (as she's just proven to the reader), she still makes time for her superheroic duties. Here she investigates a young woman who has mysteriously appeared, comatose, on the Stanhope campus:
Um, can Supergirl do that? Read minds, I mean? Because this is the first I've heard of it.
(The girl, incidentally, had been traumatized by her experiences with an evil cult operating on campus. Because, you know, 1970.)
But Supergirl isn't the only one here displaying heretofore-unknown abilities. Here she again makes use of her Kryptonian super-telepathy, while Wonder Woman...casts a circle and conjures up a spirit?
The spirit, Morganna, is an old foe of Diana's, and is none too happy to be summoned--until she's told who is running the cult, and is then only too happy to lend a hand:
Fortunately for Linda, Diana just happened to have a brand spanking new Supergirl costume hanging on the rack! You wouldn't think there would be a lot of market for that sort of thing, but there you go.
And what about the indestructible part? Supergirl flies into volcanos, acid baths, the cold vacuum of space. Is this new costume going to hold up to that sort of thing? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that the next time she goes into a burning building to rescue a baby, she's going to come out minus some costume. It's not a good thing.
Apparently DC had run a contest wherein readers could send in their own costume designs. Clever idea, and I think the Legion of Superheroes did something similar at some point.
In this story, Linda Danvers (Supergirl's alter ego) is a college girl in a funk. Since there's a "girl" in Supergirl, there is but one way for her to brush away her blues:
And who does she see in the clothing store but Wonder Woman, who has given up her superhero lifestyle and now runs her very own boutique. No wonder Supergirl is envious!
But even though Linda is all girl (as she's just proven to the reader), she still makes time for her superheroic duties. Here she investigates a young woman who has mysteriously appeared, comatose, on the Stanhope campus:
Um, can Supergirl do that? Read minds, I mean? Because this is the first I've heard of it.
(The girl, incidentally, had been traumatized by her experiences with an evil cult operating on campus. Because, you know, 1970.)
But Supergirl isn't the only one here displaying heretofore-unknown abilities. Here she again makes use of her Kryptonian super-telepathy, while Wonder Woman...casts a circle and conjures up a spirit?
The spirit, Morganna, is an old foe of Diana's, and is none too happy to be summoned--until she's told who is running the cult, and is then only too happy to lend a hand:
Fortunately for Linda, Diana just happened to have a brand spanking new Supergirl costume hanging on the rack! You wouldn't think there would be a lot of market for that sort of thing, but there you go.
And what about the indestructible part? Supergirl flies into volcanos, acid baths, the cold vacuum of space. Is this new costume going to hold up to that sort of thing? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that the next time she goes into a burning building to rescue a baby, she's going to come out minus some costume. It's not a good thing.
Monday, November 13, 2006
More Silver Age Love Triangle Action [Spoilers for Avengers 114-128]
Now, I dug into the longboxes again for this one. I hate going into the longboxes in the winter. It's cold. They're heavy. But the search is always worthwhile.
I had so much fun looking once again at FF #132 (see a couple of posts ago) that I decided to dig into the Avengers box for some real early-70s comic book soap opera. This one took place at around the same time (1973). The poor fellow having his heart ripped to shreds this time? The Swordsman.
The Swordsman got his start back in the sixties, as primarily a Hawkeye villain--he had more or less mentored the young Hawk in his carnival days, and only later revealed himself to be a crook. He had battled the Avengers a while back. Now, however...well, here's my problem. He joined up with the Avengers in issue #114. My collection of Avengers starts with issue #115 (with a few scattered earlier issues). I don't actually know how it came about that he became an Avenger, not really. From what I was able to glean, he had continued with his criminal ways for quite a while, and then met a young woman, Mantis, who had convinced him to reform. The Avengers have a history of giving a second chance to super-powered not-quite-heroes, so there's nothing unbelievable about this. Mantis, who accompanied him, was a highly skilled martial arts expert who possessed a number of other, more mysterious powers as well.
So, all well and good, the former villain has been saved by the love of a good woman, just like in countless novels and movies before. I don't think this would fly today (witness my own reactions to the recent Black Adam/Isis interactions in 52) but in 1973 the ten-year-olds weren't looking far beyond the surface and I certainly bought the premise.
Here are the Swordsman and Mantis, the happy couple, shortly after their arrival at Avengers Mansion. Did I mention that these two had one of the most dysfunctional, codependent relationships in the entire Marvel Universe? Because they did. And here they are, helpfully encapsulating the weakly-rooted origin of their relationship. The Swordsman loves Mantis because she helped him to become a better man, gave him something to lean on when he needed it (which, as you'll see, was most of the time). She provides for him not only a moral compass but the strength that should come from within. As for Mantis, all she wants is "a strong, heroic man." One wonders about this, given that Mantis herself has a great deal of personal power and skill, but there you go--she needs to feel protected and safe. And while there is a definite interdependency, it's clear even at this point in the story that she does not need him as he needs her. (Please note a small indication of his jealousy/insecurity in the first panel.)
And above we see the beginning of the end for these two. The Swordsman, in true John Wayne fashion (seriously, I've seen John Wayne do this in a movie), has played the tough guy and ignored a potentially serious injury until this point--where he collapses and is carried of by Mantis to rest until his injury heals. Now, if this happened in a comic now, I wouldn't think much about it (apart from a quick "what an idiot!"). Thirty years ago, and particularly given the nature of the relatinship between Swordsman and Mantis? She wants a strong man. In this moment, he is no longer that. The fact that it is Mantis herself who is carrying him underlines a disparity in their power. Not that Mantis herself sees it this way at this point--but it's there, a visual cue, for the reader.
While the Swordsman is recovering, Mantis and the other Avengers (although she was not herself a member at this time, she helped out quite a bit) go off to battle against the crime cartel Zodiac. Their schtick was that each member dressed up like a sign of the Zodiac (Aries as a ram, Leo as a lion, and so forth). Although Mantis made an excellent showing, she was eventually defeated and thrown from a roof. Her saviour is the Vision, and she is damned impressed with him:
The Swordsman, sidelined from the battle due to his own injuries, is beside himself with worry. The Vision does not help matters with his comments here:
Is something going on here? wonders the Swordsman. Well, no, at least not from the Vision's point of view. He is in love with Wanda, and that's all there is to that. But the Vision is new to human interaction, and even if he were not, the Swordsman's irrational jealousy wouldn't be something he would take into consideration when praising a teammate's skill and valor as he does here. (The Swordsman doesn't know that Mantis herself has developed an appreciation for the android. His reaction here is based entirely on his own feelings.)
However, he will have no doubts about Mantis's own interests after he sees this:
There's a lot of action in these books as well, but I'm not writing about it here other than to put some of the soap into context. The Avengers continue to battle Zodiac. A member of Zodiac, Libra, jumps ship, revealing himself to be the father of Mantis and telling a long, sad tale of her life up to this point. Mantis is enraged--her own memories are of a happy childhood, not one in which her mother was tragically killed. She attacks Libra, and when the Avengers try to stop her she beats the crap out of them. Even Thor. Finally she is restrained by Libra himself.
Just then the Swordsman, who has overheard Libra's story and is desperate to redeem himself for his perceived weakness in Mantis' eyes, takes a plane and goes off after the man who killed her mother:
This...does not go as well as he might have hoped:
In fact, at this point the Swordsman pretty much melts into a big puddle of emo. I remember, as a child, feeling tremendously sorry for him, even though I'm sure I didn't grasp the entirety of his situation.
Honestly, from here on in it's all downhill. The Swordsman recovers his strength and attempts to function as an Avenger, but so overwhelmed is he with the inevitable loss of Mantis that he can barely hold it together enough to do his heroing, picking fights with the Vision in the middle of battle:
The Vision is, again, clueless. And now poor Wanda is brought into the mix:
Pretty soon Avengers mansion is filled with the expectation of loss, with angst, with fear, with smoldering glances, and no one can get any work done:
And yes, the Silver Age Vision (much as I adore him) could be a real dick. He has, obviously, no idea of how to handle this development. It's hard enough for him to deal with the relatively straightforward (if in many ways problematic) relationship he and Wanda share. There's no way he is able to comprehend the twisted dynamic of the relationship of the Swordsman and Mantis, into which he and Wanda have been drawn through no fault of their own. He doesn't understand why Wanda is so upset--understandable--and he's not all that interested in why. Granted that she is trying to have a big relationship talk in the middle of a battle:
For his part, the Swordsman is digging his hole deeper and deeper. He can see the writing on the wall, and he has no idea what to do to regain Mantis' love, which is so obviously slipping away:
She has decided that he can no longer give her what she believes she needs (a strong, self-sufficient man), and is thus no longer willing to give him what he needs from her.
Now, I don't remember this next bit from way back when I first read it, but I liked it quite a bit this time. Wanda has just been offered magical training by Agatha Harkness, and has jumped at the opportunity. Although she has been concerned about the Vision and Mantis, she doesn't let that distract her from her work:
Since Wanda was historically someone without a lot of focus--due in part, I'm sure, to the very arbitrary nature of her mutant hex power (what could it do? whatever the writers needed it to do) so it's nice to see, here, her trying to take charge of her own abilities, and giving that priority over relationship issues.
Meanwhile, other Avengers are more concerned with purely personal matters, as Mantis finally makes her break with the Swordsman:
and he, devastated, falls apart entirely. Mantis, for her part, having made up her mind, moves quickly...
...but to no avail. The Vision is not interested, and tells her so in no uncertain terms.
Go Vision! I knew it all the time.
Back to the action, the Avengers are attacked by Kang, who starts off the Celestial Madonna Saga by kidnapping not only every woman in the mansion (that would be Mantis, the Scarlet Witch, and Agatha Harkness) but all the men as well.
All but one:
Yeah, you know you're pathetic when even supervillains don't think you're worth their while.
But the Swordsman would get his chance. He's contacted by Agatha Harkness, who instructs him on how to reach the captive Avengers in Egypt. In a pyramid, of course. And he tries, he really does, but--at this point--he is still not making the best of impressions. He breaks into the pyramid easily enough, due to past experience as a tomb robber, but when he is confronted with the dangers within it, his emotional state catches up with him:
He stumbles his way through passages, somehow finding himself near Kang. What luck! But just when he's about to blast Kang with his sword, he is stopped by--Rama-Tut. End of story.
I say "end of story" because, well, I'm missing the next part. It was in Giant Size Avengers 2, which I lack. I did, however, take a quick look in Wikipedia, from which I learned that he dies saving Mantis from Kang, at which point she realizes (of course) that she really does love him after all, and redeems himself, and all that good stuff.
There are a few things that struck me about this story during the rereading.
First is how much I dislike the character of Mantis. I don't think even the ten-year-old me was that enthralled with her, since I thought she was pretty mean (although she had easily the best powers of any woman I'd seen up to that point), but now? Manipulative, self-centered, willing to break up not only her own relationship but someone else's in order to get what she wants, she's portrayed very negatively. She destroyed the Swordsman. And yet she was firmly on the side of the heroes. How often--thirty years ago--did we see someone not a villain whose character was so unlikable?
Second has to do with how damned stereotypical Mantis' character is. She's Asian, therefore she knows martial arts, has awareness beyond the understanding of Western folk, and is basically inscrutable. (Granted that we later learn that she was in fact trained by the Kree, but the point still stands.) She possessed a number of gender-stereotypical characteristics as well--the deference to the Swordsman, the stated need for "a strong man." Although I'm not sure how deep those went, she certainly displayed an abhorrance and scorn for a man who was not stereotypically strong, brave and heroic, equally as unrealistic, and certainly equally as disastrous for the Swordsman who tried to live up to her ideals in order to keep her..
Third is how fully the younger me bought into the notion that it was at all appropriate for either one of these people to be so responsible for the other's well-being. The notion of being saved by "the love of a good woman" (and destroye by its loss)? Not until we saw the results of that utter dependency, the weakness and incapacity born of drawing all of one's strength from another person, did I as a kid realize that there was something fundamentally wrong there. That was, I think, a pretty big thing to do in a comic in 1973--to write against the common ideal in that way.
I had so much fun looking once again at FF #132 (see a couple of posts ago) that I decided to dig into the Avengers box for some real early-70s comic book soap opera. This one took place at around the same time (1973). The poor fellow having his heart ripped to shreds this time? The Swordsman.
The Swordsman got his start back in the sixties, as primarily a Hawkeye villain--he had more or less mentored the young Hawk in his carnival days, and only later revealed himself to be a crook. He had battled the Avengers a while back. Now, however...well, here's my problem. He joined up with the Avengers in issue #114. My collection of Avengers starts with issue #115 (with a few scattered earlier issues). I don't actually know how it came about that he became an Avenger, not really. From what I was able to glean, he had continued with his criminal ways for quite a while, and then met a young woman, Mantis, who had convinced him to reform. The Avengers have a history of giving a second chance to super-powered not-quite-heroes, so there's nothing unbelievable about this. Mantis, who accompanied him, was a highly skilled martial arts expert who possessed a number of other, more mysterious powers as well.
So, all well and good, the former villain has been saved by the love of a good woman, just like in countless novels and movies before. I don't think this would fly today (witness my own reactions to the recent Black Adam/Isis interactions in 52) but in 1973 the ten-year-olds weren't looking far beyond the surface and I certainly bought the premise.
Here are the Swordsman and Mantis, the happy couple, shortly after their arrival at Avengers Mansion. Did I mention that these two had one of the most dysfunctional, codependent relationships in the entire Marvel Universe? Because they did. And here they are, helpfully encapsulating the weakly-rooted origin of their relationship. The Swordsman loves Mantis because she helped him to become a better man, gave him something to lean on when he needed it (which, as you'll see, was most of the time). She provides for him not only a moral compass but the strength that should come from within. As for Mantis, all she wants is "a strong, heroic man." One wonders about this, given that Mantis herself has a great deal of personal power and skill, but there you go--she needs to feel protected and safe. And while there is a definite interdependency, it's clear even at this point in the story that she does not need him as he needs her. (Please note a small indication of his jealousy/insecurity in the first panel.)
And above we see the beginning of the end for these two. The Swordsman, in true John Wayne fashion (seriously, I've seen John Wayne do this in a movie), has played the tough guy and ignored a potentially serious injury until this point--where he collapses and is carried of by Mantis to rest until his injury heals. Now, if this happened in a comic now, I wouldn't think much about it (apart from a quick "what an idiot!"). Thirty years ago, and particularly given the nature of the relatinship between Swordsman and Mantis? She wants a strong man. In this moment, he is no longer that. The fact that it is Mantis herself who is carrying him underlines a disparity in their power. Not that Mantis herself sees it this way at this point--but it's there, a visual cue, for the reader.
While the Swordsman is recovering, Mantis and the other Avengers (although she was not herself a member at this time, she helped out quite a bit) go off to battle against the crime cartel Zodiac. Their schtick was that each member dressed up like a sign of the Zodiac (Aries as a ram, Leo as a lion, and so forth). Although Mantis made an excellent showing, she was eventually defeated and thrown from a roof. Her saviour is the Vision, and she is damned impressed with him:
The Swordsman, sidelined from the battle due to his own injuries, is beside himself with worry. The Vision does not help matters with his comments here:
Is something going on here? wonders the Swordsman. Well, no, at least not from the Vision's point of view. He is in love with Wanda, and that's all there is to that. But the Vision is new to human interaction, and even if he were not, the Swordsman's irrational jealousy wouldn't be something he would take into consideration when praising a teammate's skill and valor as he does here. (The Swordsman doesn't know that Mantis herself has developed an appreciation for the android. His reaction here is based entirely on his own feelings.)
However, he will have no doubts about Mantis's own interests after he sees this:
There's a lot of action in these books as well, but I'm not writing about it here other than to put some of the soap into context. The Avengers continue to battle Zodiac. A member of Zodiac, Libra, jumps ship, revealing himself to be the father of Mantis and telling a long, sad tale of her life up to this point. Mantis is enraged--her own memories are of a happy childhood, not one in which her mother was tragically killed. She attacks Libra, and when the Avengers try to stop her she beats the crap out of them. Even Thor. Finally she is restrained by Libra himself.
Just then the Swordsman, who has overheard Libra's story and is desperate to redeem himself for his perceived weakness in Mantis' eyes, takes a plane and goes off after the man who killed her mother:
This...does not go as well as he might have hoped:
In fact, at this point the Swordsman pretty much melts into a big puddle of emo. I remember, as a child, feeling tremendously sorry for him, even though I'm sure I didn't grasp the entirety of his situation.
Honestly, from here on in it's all downhill. The Swordsman recovers his strength and attempts to function as an Avenger, but so overwhelmed is he with the inevitable loss of Mantis that he can barely hold it together enough to do his heroing, picking fights with the Vision in the middle of battle:
The Vision is, again, clueless. And now poor Wanda is brought into the mix:
Pretty soon Avengers mansion is filled with the expectation of loss, with angst, with fear, with smoldering glances, and no one can get any work done:
And yes, the Silver Age Vision (much as I adore him) could be a real dick. He has, obviously, no idea of how to handle this development. It's hard enough for him to deal with the relatively straightforward (if in many ways problematic) relationship he and Wanda share. There's no way he is able to comprehend the twisted dynamic of the relationship of the Swordsman and Mantis, into which he and Wanda have been drawn through no fault of their own. He doesn't understand why Wanda is so upset--understandable--and he's not all that interested in why. Granted that she is trying to have a big relationship talk in the middle of a battle:
For his part, the Swordsman is digging his hole deeper and deeper. He can see the writing on the wall, and he has no idea what to do to regain Mantis' love, which is so obviously slipping away:
She has decided that he can no longer give her what she believes she needs (a strong, self-sufficient man), and is thus no longer willing to give him what he needs from her.
Now, I don't remember this next bit from way back when I first read it, but I liked it quite a bit this time. Wanda has just been offered magical training by Agatha Harkness, and has jumped at the opportunity. Although she has been concerned about the Vision and Mantis, she doesn't let that distract her from her work:
Since Wanda was historically someone without a lot of focus--due in part, I'm sure, to the very arbitrary nature of her mutant hex power (what could it do? whatever the writers needed it to do) so it's nice to see, here, her trying to take charge of her own abilities, and giving that priority over relationship issues.
Meanwhile, other Avengers are more concerned with purely personal matters, as Mantis finally makes her break with the Swordsman:
and he, devastated, falls apart entirely. Mantis, for her part, having made up her mind, moves quickly...
...but to no avail. The Vision is not interested, and tells her so in no uncertain terms.
Go Vision! I knew it all the time.
Back to the action, the Avengers are attacked by Kang, who starts off the Celestial Madonna Saga by kidnapping not only every woman in the mansion (that would be Mantis, the Scarlet Witch, and Agatha Harkness) but all the men as well.
All but one:
Yeah, you know you're pathetic when even supervillains don't think you're worth their while.
But the Swordsman would get his chance. He's contacted by Agatha Harkness, who instructs him on how to reach the captive Avengers in Egypt. In a pyramid, of course. And he tries, he really does, but--at this point--he is still not making the best of impressions. He breaks into the pyramid easily enough, due to past experience as a tomb robber, but when he is confronted with the dangers within it, his emotional state catches up with him:
He stumbles his way through passages, somehow finding himself near Kang. What luck! But just when he's about to blast Kang with his sword, he is stopped by--Rama-Tut. End of story.
I say "end of story" because, well, I'm missing the next part. It was in Giant Size Avengers 2, which I lack. I did, however, take a quick look in Wikipedia, from which I learned that he dies saving Mantis from Kang, at which point she realizes (of course) that she really does love him after all, and redeems himself, and all that good stuff.
There are a few things that struck me about this story during the rereading.
First is how much I dislike the character of Mantis. I don't think even the ten-year-old me was that enthralled with her, since I thought she was pretty mean (although she had easily the best powers of any woman I'd seen up to that point), but now? Manipulative, self-centered, willing to break up not only her own relationship but someone else's in order to get what she wants, she's portrayed very negatively. She destroyed the Swordsman. And yet she was firmly on the side of the heroes. How often--thirty years ago--did we see someone not a villain whose character was so unlikable?
Second has to do with how damned stereotypical Mantis' character is. She's Asian, therefore she knows martial arts, has awareness beyond the understanding of Western folk, and is basically inscrutable. (Granted that we later learn that she was in fact trained by the Kree, but the point still stands.) She possessed a number of gender-stereotypical characteristics as well--the deference to the Swordsman, the stated need for "a strong man." Although I'm not sure how deep those went, she certainly displayed an abhorrance and scorn for a man who was not stereotypically strong, brave and heroic, equally as unrealistic, and certainly equally as disastrous for the Swordsman who tried to live up to her ideals in order to keep her..
Third is how fully the younger me bought into the notion that it was at all appropriate for either one of these people to be so responsible for the other's well-being. The notion of being saved by "the love of a good woman" (and destroye by its loss)? Not until we saw the results of that utter dependency, the weakness and incapacity born of drawing all of one's strength from another person, did I as a kid realize that there was something fundamentally wrong there. That was, I think, a pretty big thing to do in a comic in 1973--to write against the common ideal in that way.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Comics to Remember: Fantastic Four #132
I'm pretty sure that most folks wouldn't count FF #132 as a "comic to remember." It's actually a pretty standard story. However, it marked the first time that I--as a kid--made a point of trying to find several comics in a row because I wanted to see the whole story instead of just the piece I'd find in a single issue.
It was 1973. I was ten years old. At this point I was choosing my own comics, but going mostly by whether the covers appealed to me and only secondarily by whether I knew I liked a particular book. And as a ten-year-old I went for the visually exciting. (Thus my purchase, at around the same time, of Supergirl #8, despite the fact that Supergirl wasn't a comic I typically read--but she had snakes on her head! Snakes! I had to have it! But that would be a discussion for another post, assuming that that book ever turns up...)
But I had always picked up Fantastic Four semi-regularly because I almost always liked it. (Probably mostly because of the Thing.)
Now, issue 132 was not a cliff-hanger. It had a definite ending. I didn't necessarily need to get issue #133...but what I wanted to know was, what had happened in issue #131 that set off this turn of events?
To some extent I could guess, from the exposition-filled splash page
and the angsty young-love soap opera, which IMO served to set Crystal on the slippery slope to becoming Marvel's premier Shady Woman With Questionable Morals, soon to charm a string of men who should really have known better (I'm talking to you, Black Knight!)
Luckily, back then the newsstands weren't as careful as they are now about getting rid of every single old issue, and I was able to get a copy of 131, and able to learn that the Human Torch had gone looking for Crystal (who had been a member of the FF at one point, I think originally during Sue's pregnancy, but had to return to Attilan because her delicate Inhuman constitution couldn't handle excessive exposure to the pollutants in the rest of the world) and discovered her making time with Quicksilver (who had been on a mission there, been injured, stayed to recover his strength and speed, and fallen in love with Crystal). The Torch of course decided to pick a fight with Quicksilver (no difficult task, that) because obviously the way to get a torn-between-two-lovers kind of girl to choose you is to beat the crap out of the other guy. Never mind that in every movie you see this in, the girl always picks the loser... In any case, he never did get to find out whether this would have worked because the fight was interrupted when the object of their competition was attacked by a giant...well, a giant.
So. Back to issue 132. You're probably wondering how Omega was defeated. Well, he really wasn't. You see...hey, do you remember back when the Inhumans had slaves? Yeah, those were the days. So how did that work out for them?
After the battle, the Inhumans reward the FF by repairing their uniforms via an "electro-weave" device. The Torch gets a new red version of his classic blue costume; Reed's costume remains the same. And Medusa?
Now, I loved Medusa in the Fantastic Four, especially as a replacement for Crystal--who, at that time, was a bit of a shrinking violet despite her great power. Medusa was very exciting visually--yes, she fought with her hair, but she fought, she didn't just point. She had an amiable arrogance to her that I liked a great deal. I suppose it had something to do with her role being primarily that of a team member, not that of a wife or girlfriend. (Crystal could undoubtedly have taken Johnny out at any time without even disturbing that odd hairpiece of hers, but she rarely got the chance to show her stuff.) Regardless, in this setting Medusa was a tremendously fun character!
The rest of the story? Well, as we all know now, Crystal ended up with Quicksilver, for better or for worse (mostly worse). And as for poor Johnny, unfortunately this would not be the worst ending to a relationship he ever had. But, again, all that is for another post.
It was 1973. I was ten years old. At this point I was choosing my own comics, but going mostly by whether the covers appealed to me and only secondarily by whether I knew I liked a particular book. And as a ten-year-old I went for the visually exciting. (Thus my purchase, at around the same time, of Supergirl #8, despite the fact that Supergirl wasn't a comic I typically read--but she had snakes on her head! Snakes! I had to have it! But that would be a discussion for another post, assuming that that book ever turns up...)
But I had always picked up Fantastic Four semi-regularly because I almost always liked it. (Probably mostly because of the Thing.)
Now, issue 132 was not a cliff-hanger. It had a definite ending. I didn't necessarily need to get issue #133...but what I wanted to know was, what had happened in issue #131 that set off this turn of events?
To some extent I could guess, from the exposition-filled splash page
and the angsty young-love soap opera, which IMO served to set Crystal on the slippery slope to becoming Marvel's premier Shady Woman With Questionable Morals, soon to charm a string of men who should really have known better (I'm talking to you, Black Knight!)
Luckily, back then the newsstands weren't as careful as they are now about getting rid of every single old issue, and I was able to get a copy of 131, and able to learn that the Human Torch had gone looking for Crystal (who had been a member of the FF at one point, I think originally during Sue's pregnancy, but had to return to Attilan because her delicate Inhuman constitution couldn't handle excessive exposure to the pollutants in the rest of the world) and discovered her making time with Quicksilver (who had been on a mission there, been injured, stayed to recover his strength and speed, and fallen in love with Crystal). The Torch of course decided to pick a fight with Quicksilver (no difficult task, that) because obviously the way to get a torn-between-two-lovers kind of girl to choose you is to beat the crap out of the other guy. Never mind that in every movie you see this in, the girl always picks the loser... In any case, he never did get to find out whether this would have worked because the fight was interrupted when the object of their competition was attacked by a giant...well, a giant.
So. Back to issue 132. You're probably wondering how Omega was defeated. Well, he really wasn't. You see...hey, do you remember back when the Inhumans had slaves? Yeah, those were the days. So how did that work out for them?
After the battle, the Inhumans reward the FF by repairing their uniforms via an "electro-weave" device. The Torch gets a new red version of his classic blue costume; Reed's costume remains the same. And Medusa?
Now, I loved Medusa in the Fantastic Four, especially as a replacement for Crystal--who, at that time, was a bit of a shrinking violet despite her great power. Medusa was very exciting visually--yes, she fought with her hair, but she fought, she didn't just point. She had an amiable arrogance to her that I liked a great deal. I suppose it had something to do with her role being primarily that of a team member, not that of a wife or girlfriend. (Crystal could undoubtedly have taken Johnny out at any time without even disturbing that odd hairpiece of hers, but she rarely got the chance to show her stuff.) Regardless, in this setting Medusa was a tremendously fun character!
The rest of the story? Well, as we all know now, Crystal ended up with Quicksilver, for better or for worse (mostly worse). And as for poor Johnny, unfortunately this would not be the worst ending to a relationship he ever had. But, again, all that is for another post.
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